Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on National 

Parks, Recreation and Public Lands, 

Committee on Resources, House of 

Representatives

United States General Accounting Office 

GAO

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT 

Thursday, May 6, 2004 RECREATION FEES 

Comments on the Federal 

Lands Recreation 

Enhancement Act, H.R. 

3283 

Statement of Barry T. Hill, Director 

Natural Resources and Environment 

GAO-04-745T 
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-745T.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Barry T. Hill at 

(202) 512-3841 or hillbt@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-745T, a testimony 

before the Subcommittee on National 

Parks, Recreation and Public Lands, 

Committee on Resources, House of 

Representatives 

May 6, 2004

RECREATION FEES

Comments on the Federal Lands 

Recreation Enhancement Act, H.R. 3283 

H.R. 3283 would provide agencies with a permanent source of funds to 

better address their maintenance backlog, and by making the program 

permanent, the act would provide agencies incentive to develop a system to 

track their deferred maintenance backlogs. According to the Department of 

the Interior’s latest estimates, the deferred maintenance backlog for the 

Interior agencies participating in the fee demonstration program ranges from 

$5.1 billion to $8.3 billion, with the Park Service alone accounting for an 

estimated $4 to $7 billion. Likewise, the Forest Service, the other 

participating agency, estimates its total deferred maintenance backlog to be 

about $8 billion. GAO’s prior work on the Park Service’s and Forest 

Service’s backlog has demonstrated that neither agency has accurate and 

reliable information on its deferred maintenance needs and cannot 

determine how much of the fee demonstration revenues it spends on 

reducing its deferred maintenance needs. Furthermore, some agency 

officials have hesitated to divert resources to develop a process for tracking 

deferred maintenance because the fee demonstration program is temporary.

H.R. 3283 would allow agencies to reduce the percentage of fee revenue 

used on-site down to 60 percent, thus providing the agencies with greater 

flexibility in how they use the revenues. Currently, the demonstration 

program requires federal land management agencies to maintain at least 80 

percent of the collected fee revenues for use on-site. This requirement has 

helped some demonstration sites generate revenue in excess of their highpriority needs, but the high-priority needs at other sites, which did not 

collect as much in fee revenues, remained unmet. GAO has suggested that 

the Congress consider modifying the current 80-percent on-site spending 

requirement to provide agencies greater flexibility in using fee revenues. 

H.R. 3283 would standardize the types of fees federal land management 

agencies may use and creates a single national pass that provides visitors 

general access to a variety of recreation sites managed by different agencies 

and allows for the regional coordination of fees to access multiple nearby 

sites. GAO’s prior reports have demonstrated the need for more effective 

coordination and cooperation among the agencies to better serve visitors by 

making the payment of fees more convenient and equitable while reducing 

visitor confusion about similar or multiple fees being charged at nearby or 

adjacent federal recreation sites. 

In 1996, the Congress authorized an 

experimental initiative called the 

Recreational Fee Demonstration 

Program that provides funds to 

increase the quality of visitor 

experience and enhance resource 

protection. Under the program, the 

Bureau of Land Management, Fish 

and Wildlife Service, and National 

Park Service—all within the 

Department of the Interior—and 

the Forest Service—within the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture—are 

authorized to establish, charge, 

collect, and use fees at a number of 

sites to, among other things, 

address a backlog of repair and 

maintenance needs. Also, sites 

may retain and use the fees they 

collect. The Congress is now 

considering, through H.R. 3283, 

whether to make the program 

permanent. Central to the debate is 

how effectively the agencies are 

using the revenues that they have 

collected. 

This testimony focuses on the 

potential effect of H.R. 3283 on the 

issues GAO raised previously in its 

work on the Recreational Fee 

Demonstration Program. 

Specifically, it examines the extent 

to which H.R. 3283 would affect (1) 

federal agencies’ deferred 

maintenance programs, (2) the 

management and distribution of the 

revenue collected, and (3) 

interagency coordination on fee 

collection and use. 
Page 1 GAO-04-745T 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss H.R. 3283, the Federal Lands 

Recreation Enhancement Act, which proposes, among other things, to 

establish a permanent recreation fee program for certain federal land 

management agencies and standardize certain visitor fees. For many years, 

the Congress has sought to identify programs that would help federal land 

management agencies provide high-quality recreational opportunities for 

visitors while at the same time protecting their resources. Accordingly, in 

1996, the Congress authorized an experimental initiative, called the 

Recreational Fee Demonstration Program. Under this program, four land 

management agencies—the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and 

Wildlife Service, and National Park Service within the Department of the 

Interior, and the Forest Service within the U.S. Department of 

Agriculture—are authorized to establish, charge, collect, and use fees at a 

number of sites to, among other things, enhance visitor services, address a 

backlog of needs for repair and maintenance, and manage and protect 

resources. We have issued a number of reports and testimonies on the 

program since its inception, identifying issues that need to be addressed to 

improve the program’s effectiveness. (Appendix I lists our related reports 

and testimonies.) 

The Congress is now considering, through H.R. 3283, whether it should 

make the program permanent. Central to the debate is how effectively the 

land management agencies use the funds generated from recreation fee 

collection. My testimony today focuses on H.R. 3283’s potential effect on 

the issues that we raised in our prior work on the Recreational Fee 

Demonstration Program, specifically the extent to which the act would 

affect (1) federal agencies’ deferred maintenance programs, (2) the 

management and distribution of the revenue collected, and (3) interagency 

coordination on fee collection and use. 

We did not conduct any follow-up audit work in conjunction with this 

testimony. All of our prior work was conducted in accordance with 

generally accepted government auditing standards. 

In summary, H.R. 3283 would provide federal land management agencies 

with a permanent source of funds to help reduce their maintenance 

backlogs—one of the authorized uses of the revenues collected under the 

fee demonstration program. According to the Department of the Interior’s 

latest estimates, the combined deferred maintenance backlogs for the 

participating agencies ranged from $5.1 billion to $8.3 billion of which the 

Results in Brief 
Page 2 GAO-04-745T 

Park Service accounted for an estimated $4 to $7 billion. Likewise, the 

Forest Service estimated its total deferred maintenance backlog to be 

about $8 billion, the bulk of which was needed for forest roads and 

bridges. However, as we have previously reported, neither the Park 

Service or Forest Service have accurate and reliable information on their 

deferred maintenance needs and, as a result, they cannot determine how 

much of the fee demonstration revenues is being spent on deferred 

maintenance or the fee program’s overall impact on reducing their 

deferred maintenance needs. Some agency officials have hesitated to 

divert resources to develop a process for tracking deferred maintenance 

because the fee demonstration program is temporary. H.R. 3283 would 

provide agencies with a permanent source of funds to better address their 

maintenance backlog, and by making the program permanent, the act 

would provide agencies incentive to develop a system to track their 

deferred maintenance backlogs. 

H.R. 3283 provides the participating agencies greater flexibility in how and 

where they may apply fee revenues. Currently, the fee demonstration 

program requires federal land management agencies to retain at least 80 

percent of the collected fee revenues for use on-site. While this 

requirement has helped some demonstration sites generate revenue in 

excess of their high-priority needs, the high-priority needs at other sites, 

which do not collect as much in fee revenues, remained unmet. We have 

suggested that the Congress consider modifying the current 80-percent onsite spending requirement to provide agencies greater flexibility in using 

fee revenues to better meet their overall priority needs. However, we 

noted that agencies needed to balance the need for flexibility in 

transferring revenue against the need of keeping sufficient funds on-site to 

maintain incentives at fee-collecting units and to maintain visitor support. 

H.R. 3283 would allow agencies to reduce the percentage of fee revenue 

retained for use on-site down to 60 percent, if the respective Secretary 

determined that the revenues collected at the unit or area exceed the 

reasonable needs of the site. H.R. 3283 would also provide agencies with 

the flexibility to balance the need to provide incentives at fee-collecting 

sites and support of visitors against transferring revenues to other sites. 

H.R. 3283 contains provisions to improve interagency coordination in the 

collection and use of recreation fees. Previously, we demonstrated the 

need for more effective coordination and cooperation among the agencies 

to better serve visitors by making the payment of fees more convenient 

and equitable while at the same time, reducing visitor confusion about 

similar or multiple fees being charged at nearby or adjacent federal 

recreation sites. For example, visitors entering Olympic National Park or 
Page 3 GAO-04-745T 

the adjacent Olympic National Forest previously paid different fees to hike 

on the same trail. H.R. 3283 would standardize the types of fees federal 

land management agencies may use, create a single national pass that 

provides visitors general access to a variety of recreation sites managed by 

different agencies, and allow for the regional coordination of fees to 

access multiple nearby sites. 

For the past several years, concerns about the cost of operating and 

maintaining federal recreation sites within the federal land management 

agencies have led the Congress to provide a significant new source of 

funds. This additional source of funding—the Recreational Fee 

Demonstration Program—was authorized in 1996. The fee demonstration 

program authorized the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife 

Service, National Park Service, and the Forest Service to experiment with 

new ways to administer existing fee revenues and to establish new 

recreation entrance and user fees. The current authorization for the 

program expires December 31, 2005. 

Previously, all sites collecting entrance and user fees deposited the 

revenue into a special U.S. Treasury account to be used for certain 

purposes, including resource protection and maintenance activities, and 

funds in this account only became available through congressional 

appropriations. The fee demonstration program currently allows agencies 

to maintain fee revenues in special U.S. Treasury accounts for use without 

further appropriation: 80 percent of the fees are maintained in an account 

for use at the site and the remaining 20 percent are maintained in another 

account for use on an agency-wide basis. As a result, these revenues have 

yielded substantial benefits for local recreation sites by funding significant 

on-the-ground improvements. 

From the inception of the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program, the 

four participating agencies have collected over $1 billion in recreation fees 

from the public. The Department of the Interior and the Department of 

Agriculture’s most recent budget requests indicate that the agencies 

expect to collect $138 million and $46 million, respectively, from the fee 

demonstration program in fiscal year 2005. 

Background 
Page 4 GAO-04-745T 

H.R. 3283, as proposed, would provide a permanent source of revenue for 

federal land management agencies to use to, among other things, help 

address the backlog in repair and maintenance of federal facilities and 

infrastructure. One of the principal uses of the revenues generated under 

the existing Recreational Fee Demonstration Program is for participating 

agencies to reduce their respective maintenance backlogs. 

The Department of the Interior owns, builds, purchases, and contracts 

services for such assets as visitor centers, roads, bridges, dams, and 

reservoirs, many of which are deteriorating and in need of repair or 

maintenance. We have identified Interior’s land management agencies 

inability to reduce their maintenance backlogs as a major management 

challenge.1

 According to the Department of the Interior’s latest estimates, 

the deferred maintenance backlog for its participating agencies ranged 

from about $5.1 billion to $8.3 billion. Table 1 shows the Department’s 

estimate of deferred maintenance for its agencies participating in the 

Recreational Fee Demonstration Program. 

Table 1: Estimated Deferred Maintenance for Participating Interior Agencies, as of 

February 2002 (dollars in billions) 

Bureau Low estimate High estimate

National Park Service $4.08 $6.80

Fish and Wildlife Service 0.84 1.14

Bureau of Land Management 0.19 0.33

Bureau of Reclamationa 0.03 0.03

Total $5.14 $8.30

Source: Department of the Interior 

a

Agency will be allowed to participate in the program under H.R. 3283. 

Of the current participating agencies within Interior, the National Park 

Service has the largest estimated maintenance backlog—ranging from $4 

to nearly $7 billion. As we have previously reported, the Park Service’s 

problems with maintaining its facilities have steadily worsened in part 

because the agency lacks accurate data on the facilities that need to be 

maintained or on their condition. As a result, the Park Service cannot 

effectively determine its maintenance needs, the amount of funding 

 1

U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: 

Department of the Interior, GAO-03-104 (Washington, D.C.: January 2003); U.S. General 

Accounting Office, Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of the 

Interior, GAO-01-249 (Washington, D.C.: January 2001). 

H.R. 3283 Provides a 

Permanent Source of 

Revenue That Could 

Be Used to Address 

Participating 

Agencies’ 

Maintenance 

Backlogs 
Page 5 GAO-04-745T 

needed to address them, or what progress, if any, it has made in closing 

the maintenance gap. Although the Park Service has used some of the 

revenues generated from the fee demonstration program to address its 

high-priority maintenance needs, without accurate and reliable data, it 

cannot demonstrate the effect of fee demonstration revenues in improving 

the maintenance of its facilities. 

The Park Service has acknowledged the problems associated with not 

having an accurate and reliable estimate of its maintenance needs and 

promised to develop an asset management process that, when operable, 

should provide a systematic method for documenting deferred 

maintenance needs and tracking progress in reducing the amount of 

deferred maintenance. Furthermore, the new process should enable the 

agency to develop (1) a reliable inventory of its assets, (2) a process for 

reporting on the condition of each asset, and (3) a system-wide 

methodology for estimating its deferred maintenance costs. In 2002, we 

identified some areas that the agency needed to address in order to 

improve the performance of the process, including the need to develop 

cost and schedules for completing the implementation of the process, 

better coordinating the tracking of the process among Park Service 

headquarters units to avoid duplication of effort within the agency, and 

better definition of its approach to determine the condition of its assets 

and how much the assessments will cost.2

 In our last testimony on this 

issue before this Subcommittee in September 2003, we stated that the 

complete implementation of the new process would not occur until fiscal 

year 2006, but that the agency had completed, or nearly completed, a 

number of substantial and important steps to improve the process.3

The two other Interior agencies participating in the program—the Fish and 

Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management also report deferred 

maintenance backlogs of about $1 billion and $330,000, respectively. We 

do not have any information at this time on the effectiveness of the 

program in reducing these backlogs. 

The Forest Service also has an estimated $8 billion maintenance backlog 

most of which is needed to maintain forest roads and bridges. In 

 2

U.S. General Accounting Office, National Park Service: Status of Efforts to Develop Better 

Deferred Maintenance Data, GAO-02-568R (Washington, D.C.: Apr.12, 2002). 

3

U.S. General Accounting Office, National Park Service: Efforts Underway to Address Its 

Maintenance Backlog, GAO-03-1177T (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 27, 2003). 
Page 6 GAO-04-745T 

September 2003, we reported that the Forest Service (like the Park 

Service) had no effective means for measuring how much of the fee 

demonstration revenues it had spent on deferred maintenance or the 

impact that the fee program had had on reducing its deferred maintenance 

needs.4

 Although the Forest Service has recognized the significance of its 

deferred maintenance problem, it does not have a systematic method for 

compiling the information needed to provide a reliable estimate of its 

deferred maintenance needs. Furthermore, the agency has not developed a 

process to track deferred maintenance expenditures from fee 

demonstration revenues. As a result, even if the agency knew how much 

fee revenue it spent on deferred maintenance, it could not determine the 

extent to which these revenues had reduced its overall deferred 

maintenance needs. Forest Service officials provided several reasons why 

the agency had not developed a process to track deferred maintenance 

expenditures from the demonstration revenues. First, they said that the 

agency chose to use its fee demonstration revenue to improve and 

enhance on-site visitor services rather than to develop and implement a 

system for tracking deferred maintenance spending. Second, the agency 

was not required to measure the impact of fee revenues on deferred 

maintenance. Finally, because the fee demonstration program was 

temporary, agency officials had concerns about developing a process for 

tracking deferred maintenance, not knowing if the program would 

subsequently be made permanent. 

H.R. 3283 would provide participating agencies with a permanent source 

of funds to supplement existing appropriations and to better address 

maintenance backlogs. Furthermore, by making the program permanent, 

H.R. 3283 could provide participating agencies like the Forest Service with 

an incentive to develop a system to track their deferred maintenance 

backlogs. 

 4

U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Information on Forest Service 

Management of Revenue from the Fee Demonstration Program, GAO-03-1161T

(Washington, D.C.: September 17, 2003). 
Page 7 GAO-04-745T 

The existing fee demonstration program requires federal land management 

agencies to maintain at least 80 percent of the fee revenues for use on-site. 

In a 1998 report, we suggested that, in order to provide greater 

opportunities to address high priority needs of the agencies, the Congress 

consider modifying the current requirement to grant agencies greater 

flexibility in using fee revenues.5 H.R. 3283 provides the agencies with 

flexibility to reduce the percentage of revenues spent on-site down to 60 

percent. 

We also reported that the requirement that at least 80 percent of the 

revenues be maintained for use at the collection site may inadvertently 

create funding imbalances between sites and that some heavily visited 

sites may reach a point where they have more revenues than they need for 

their projects, while other sites would still fall short.6

 In 1999, we testified 

that some demonstration sites were generating so much revenue as to 

raise questions about their long-term ability to spend these revenues on 

high-priority items.7

 In contrast, we warned that sites outside the 

demonstration program, as well as demonstration sites that did not collect 

as much in fee revenues, may have high-priority needs that remained 

unmet. As a result, some of the agencies’ highest-priority needs might not 

be addressed. Our testimony indicated that, at many sites in the 

demonstration program, the increased fee revenues amounted to 20 

percent or more of the sites’ annual operating budgets, allowing such sites 

to address past unmet needs in maintenance, resource protection, and 

visitor services. While these sites could address their needs within a few 

years, the 80-percent requirement could, over time, preclude the agencies 

from redistributing fee revenues to meet more pressing needs at other 

sites. Our November 2001 report confirmed that such imbalances had 

begun to occur.8

 Officials from the land management agencies 

acknowledged that some heavily visited sites with large fee revenues may 

 5

U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Demonstration Fee Program Successful 

in Raising Revenues but Could Be Improved, GAO/RCED-99-7 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 20, 

1998). 

6

U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Management Improvements Can Help 

the Demonstration Program Enhance Visitor Services, GAO-02-10 (Washington, D.C.: 

Nov. 26, 2001). 

7

U.S. General Accounting Office, Recreation Fees: Demonstration Program Successful in 

Raising Revenues but Could Be Improved, GAO/T-RCED-99-77 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 4, 

1999). 

8

GAO-02-10. 

H.R. 3283 Provides 

Agencies Additional 

Flexibility in 

Distributing Collected 

Fee Revenues 
Page 8 GAO-04-745T 

eventually collect more revenue than they need to address their priorities, 

while other lower-revenue generating sites may have limited or no fee 

revenues to meet their needs. 

To address this imbalance, we suggested that the Congress consider 

modifying the current requirement that 80 percent of fee revenue be 

maintained for use by the sites generating the revenues to allow for greater 

flexibility in using fee revenues. H.R. 3283 would still generally require 

agencies to maintain at least 80 percent of fee revenues for use on-site. 

However, if the Secretary of the Interior determined that the revenues 

collected at a site exceeded the reasonable needs of the unit for which 

expenditures may be made for that fiscal year, under H.R. 3283 the 

Secretary could then reduce the percentage of on-site expenditures to 60 

percent and transfer the remainder to meet other priority needs across the 

agency. 

The need for flexibility in transferring revenue must also be balanced 

against the necessity of keeping sufficient funds on-site to maintain 

incentives at fee-collecting units and to maintain the support of the 

visitors. Such a balance is of particular concern to the Forest Service, 

which has identified that visitors generally support the program so long as 

the fees are used on-site and they can see improvements to the site where 

they pay fees. Accordingly, under the existing fee demonstration program, 

the Forest Service has committed to retaining 90 to 100 percent of the fees 

on-site. As such, H.R. 3283 would not likely change the Forest Service’s 

use of collected fees. However, it would provide the Forest Service, as 

well as the other agencies, with the flexibility to balance the need to 

provide incentives at fee collecting sites and support of visitors against 

transferring revenues to other sites. 
Page 9 GAO-04-745T 

The legislative history of the fee demonstration program places an 

emphasis on participating agency collaboration to minimize or eliminate 

confusion for visitors where multiple fees could be charged to visit 

recreation sites in the same area. Our prior work has pointed to the need 

for more effective coordination and cooperation among the agencies to 

better serve visitors by making the payment of fees more convenient and 

equitable while at the same time, reducing visitor confusion about similar 

or multiple fees being charged at nearby or adjacent federal recreation 

sites.9

 For example, sites do not consistently accept agency and 

interagency passes, resulting in visitor confusion and, in some cases, 

overlapping or duplicative fees for the same or similar activities. H.R. 3283 

would allow for improved service to visitors by coordinating federal 

agency fee-collection activities. First, the act would standardize the types 

of fees that the federal land management agencies use. Second, it would 

create a single national pass that would provide visitors access to 

recreation sites managed by different agencies. Third, it would allow for 

the coordination of fees on a regional level for access to multiple nearby 

sites. 

In November 2001, we reported that agencies had not pursued 

opportunities to coordinate their fees better among their own sites, with 

other agencies, or with other nearby, nonfederal recreational sites.10 As a 

result, visitors often had to pay fees that were sometimes overlapping, 

duplicative, or confusing. Limited fee coordination by the four agencies 

has permitted confusing fee situations to persist. At some sites, an 

entrance fee may be charged for one activity whereas a user fee may be 

charged for essentially the same activity at a nearby site. For example, 

visitors who entered either Olympic National Park or the Olympic National 

Forest in Washington state for day hiking are engaged in the same 

recreational activity—obtaining general access to federal lands—but were 

charged distinct entrance and user fees. For a 1-day hike in Olympic 

National Park, users paid a $10 per-vehicle entry fee (good for 1 week), 

whereas hikers using trailheads in Olympic National Forest were charged 

a daily user fee of $5 per vehicle for trailhead parking. Also, holders of the 

interagency Golden Eagle Passport—a $65 nationwide pass that provides 

access to all federal recreation sites that charge entrance fees—could use 

the pass to enter Olympic National Park, but had to pay the Forest 

 9

GAO-02-10. 

10GAO-02-10. 

H.R. 3283 Should Help 

Reduce Visitor 

Confusion by Creating 

a National Pass and 

Requiring 

Participating Agencies 

to Coordinate Fee 

Collection on a 

Regional Level 

H.R. 3283 Standardizes 

Recreation Fees 
Page 10 GAO-04-745T 

Service’s trailhead parking fee because the fee for the pass covers only 

entrance fees and not a user fees. However, the two agencies now allow 

holders of the Golden Eagle Passport to use it for trailhead parking at 

Olympic National Forest. 

Similarly, confusing and inconsistent fee situations also occur at similar 

types of sites within the same agency. For example, visitors to some Park 

Service national historic sites, such as the San Juan National Historic Site 

in Puerto Rico, pay a user fee and have access to all amenities at the sites, 

such as historic buildings. However, other Park Service historic sites, such 

as the Roosevelt/Vanderbilt Complex in New York State, charge no user 

fees, but tours of the primary residences require the payment of entrance 

fees. Visitors in possession of an annual pass that cover entrance fees, 

such as the National Parks Pass, may be further confused that their annual 

entrance pass is sufficient for admission to a user fee site, such as the San 

Juan National Historic Site, but not sufficient to allow them to enter 

certain buildings on the Roosevelt/Vanderbilt Complex, which charge 

entrance fees. 

H.R. 3283 would streamline the recreational fee program by providing a 

standard fee structure across federal land management agencies using a 3-

tiered fee structure: a basic recreation fee, an expanded recreation fee, 

and a special recreation permit fee. H.R. 3283 establishes several areas 

where a basic recreation fee may be charged.11 For example, the basic 

recreation fee offers access to, among other areas, National Park System 

units, National Conservation Areas, and National Recreation Areas. 

Expanded recreation fees are charged either in addition to the basic 

recreation fee or by itself when the visitor uses additional facilities or 

services, such as a developed campground or an equipment rental. A 

special recreation permit is charged when the visitor participates in an 

activity such as a commercial tour, competitive event, or an outfitting or 

guiding activity. 

 11The listed areas are National Park System Units, National Conservation Areas, National 

Recreation Areas, National Monuments, National Volcanic Monuments, National Scenic 

Areas and areas of substantial investment by a federal land management agency that are 

managed for recreation purposes or that contain at least one major visitor attraction and 

have had substantial investments made in their facilities or services in restoring resource 

degradation in areas of concentrated public use including a visitor or interpretive center, a 

trailhead facility or a developed parking lot, or in requiring the presence of personnel of a 

federal land management agency. 
Page 11 GAO-04-745T 

In November 2001 we reported another example of an interagency issue 

that needed to be addressed—the inconsistency and confusion 

surrounding the acceptance and use of the $65 Golden Eagle Passport.12

The annual pass provides visitors with unlimited access to federal 

recreation sites that charge an entrance fee. However, many sites do not 

charge entrance fees to gain access to a site and instead charge a user fee. 

For example, Yellowstone National Park, Acadia National Park, and the 

Eisenhower National Historic Site charge entrance fees. But sites like 

Wind Cave National Park charge user fees for general access. If user fees 

are charged in lieu of entrance fees, the Golden Eagle Passport is generally 

not accepted even though, to the visitor with a Golden Eagle Passport, 

there is no practical difference. 

Further exacerbating the public’s confusion over payment of use or 

entrance fees was the implementation of the Park Service’s single-agency 

National Parks Pass in April 2000. This $50 pass admits the holder, spouse, 

children, and parents to all National Park Service sites that charge an 

entrance fee for a full year. However, the Parks Pass does not admit the 

cardholder to the Park Service sites that charge a user fee, nor is it 

accepted for admittance to other sites in the Forest Service and in the 

Department of the Interior, including the Fish and Wildlife Service sites. 

H.R. 3283 would eliminate the current national passes and replace them 

with one federal lands pass—called the “America the Beautiful—the 

National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands Pass”—for use at any site of 

a federal land management agency that charges a basic recreation fee. The 

act also calls for the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to jointly 

establish the National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands Pass and to 

jointly issue guidelines on the administration of the pass. In addition, it 

requires that the Secretaries develop guidelines for establishing or 

changing fees and that these guidelines, among other things, would require 

federal land management agencies to coordinate with each other to the 

extent practicable when establishing or changing fees. 

H.R. 3283 would also provide local site managers the opportunity to 

coordinate and develop regional passes to reduce visitor confusion over 

access to adjacent sites managed by different agencies. When authorizing 

the demonstration program, the Congress called upon the agencies to 

 12GAO-02-10. 

H.R. 3283 Would Create a 

National Pass 

H.R. 3283 Would Provide 

Interagency Coordination 

on the Regional Level 
Page 12 GAO-04-745T 

coordinate multiple or overlapping fees. We reported in 1999 that the 

agencies were not taking advantage of this flexibility.13 For example, the 

Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service manage sites that share a 

common border on the same island in Maryland and Virginia—Assateague 

Island National Seashore and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. 

When the agencies selected the two sites for the demonstration program, 

they decided to charge separate entrance fees. However, as we reported in 

2001, the managers at these sites developed a reciprocal fee arrangement 

whereby each site accepted the fee paid at the other site to better 

accommodate the visitors.14 Resolving situations in which inconsistent and 

overlapping fees are charged for similar recreation activities would offer 

visitors a rational and consistent fee program. We stated that further 

coordination among the agencies participating in the fee demonstration 

program could reduce the confusion for visitors. We reported that 

demonstration sites may be reluctant to coordinate on fees partly because 

the program’s incentives are geared towards increasing their revenues. 

Because joint fee arrangements may potentially reduce revenues to 

specific sites, there may be a disincentive among these sites to coordinate. 

Nonetheless, we believe that the increase in service to the public might be 

worth a small reduction in revenues. 

Accordingly, we recommended that the Secretaries of Agriculture and the 

Interior direct the heads of the participating agencies to improve their 

service to visitors by better coordinating their fee collection activities 

under the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program. In response, in 2002, 

the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture formed the Interagency 

Recreational Fee Leadership Council to facilitate coordination and 

consistency among the agencies on recreation fee policies. We also 

recommended that the agencies approach such an analysis systematically, 

first by identifying other federal recreation areas close to each other and 

then, for each situation, determining whether a coordinated approach, 

such as a reciprocal fee arrangement, would better serve the visiting 

public. The agencies implemented this recommendation to a limited extent 

as evidenced by the reciprocal fee arrangement between Assateague 

Island National Seashore and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. 

H.R. 3283 offers federal agencies the opportunity to develop regional 

passes to offer access to sites managed by different federal, state and local 

 13GAO/T-RCED-99-77. 

14GAO-02-10. 
Page 13 GAO-04-745T 

agencies. As we have reported in the past, for all four agencies to make 

improvements in interagency communication, coordination, and 

consistency for the program to become user-friendly, an effective 

mechanism is needed to ensure that interagency coordination occurs or to 

resolve interagency issues or disputes when they arise.15

Essentially, the fee demonstration program raises revenue for the 

participating sites to use for maintaining and improving the quality of 

visitor services and protecting the resources at federal recreation sites. 

The program has been successful in raising a significant amount of 

revenue. However, the agencies could enhance the quality of visitor 

services more by providing better overall management of the program. 

Several of the provisions in H.R. 3283 address many of the quality of 

service issues we have identified through our prior work and if the 

provisions are properly implemented these services should improve. 

While the fee demonstration program provides funds to increase the 

quality of the visitor experience and enhance the protection of resources 

by, among other things, addressing a backlog of needs for repair and 

maintenance, and to manage and protect resources, the program’s short 

and long-term success lies in the flexibility it provides agencies to spend 

revenues and the removal of any undesirable inequities that occur to 

ensure that the agencies’ highest priority needs are met. However, any 

changes to the program’s requirements should be balanced in such a way 

that fee-collecting sites would continue to have an incentive to collect fees 

and visitors who pay them will continue to support the program. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to 

respond to any questions that you or Members of the Subcommittee may 

have. 

 15GAO-02-10. 

Conclusions 
Page 14 GAO-04-745T 

For further information about this testimony, please contact me at (202) 

512-3841. Doreen Feldman, Roy Judy, Jonathan McMurray, Patrick Sigl, 

Paul Staley, Amy Webbink, and Arvin Wu made key contributions to this 

statement. 

GAO Contacts and 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 
Page 15 GAO-04-745T 

The following is a listing of related GAO products on recreation fees, 

deferred maintenance, and other related issues. 

Recreation Fees: Information on Forest Service Management of Revenue 

from the Fee Demonstration Program. GAO-03-1161T. Washington, D.C.: 

September 17, 2003. 

Recreation Fees: Information on Forest Service Management of Revenue 

from the Fee Demonstration Program. GAO-03-470. Washington, D.C.: 

April 25, 2003. 

Recreation Fees: Management Improvements Can Help the 

Demonstration Program Enhance Visitor Services. GAO-02-10. 

Washington, D.C.: November 26, 2001. 

Recreational Fee Demonstration Program Survey. GAO-02-88SP. 

Washington, D.C.: November 1, 2001. 

National Park Service: Recreational Fee Demonstration Program 

Spending Priorities. GAO/RCED-00-37R. Washington, D.C.: November 18, 

1999. 

Recreation Fees: Demonstration Has Increased Revenues, but Impact on 

Park Service Backlog Is Uncertain. GAO/T-RCED-99-101. Washington, 

D.C.: March 3, 1999. 

Recreation Fees: Demonstration Program Successful in Raising 

Revenues but Could Be Improved. GAO/T-RCED-99-77. Washington, D.C.: 

February 4, 1999. 

Recreation Fees: Demonstration Fee Program Successful in Raising 

Revenues but Could Be Improved. GAO/RCED-99-7. Washington, D.C.: 

November 20, 1998. 

National Park Service: Efforts Underway to Address Its Maintenance 

Backlog. GAO-03-1177T. Washington, D.C.: September 27, 2003. 

National Park Service: Status of Agency Efforts to Address Its 

Maintenance Backlog. GAO-03-992T. Washington, D.C.: July 8, 2003. 

Related GAO Products 

Recreation Fees 

Deferred Maintenance 
Page 16 GAO-04-745T 

National Park Service: Status of Efforts to Develop Better Deferred 

Maintenance Data. GAO-02-568R. Washington, D.C.: April 12, 2002. 

National Park Service: Efforts to Identify and Manage the Maintenance 

Backlog. GAO/RCED-98-143. Washington, D.C.: May 14, 1998. 

National Park Service: Maintenance Backlog Issues. GAO/T-RCED-98-61. 

Washington, D.C.: February 4, 1998. 

Deferred Maintenance Reporting: Challenges to Implementation. 

GAO/AIMD-98-42. Washington, D.C.: January 30, 1998. 

Major Management Challenges and Program Risks, Department of the 

Interior. GAO-03-104. Washington, D.C.: January 2003. 

Major Management Challenges and Program Risks, Department of the 

Interior. GAO-01-249. Washington, D.C.: January 2001. 

Park Service: Managing for Results Could Strengthen Accountability. 

GAO/RCED-97-125. Washington, D.C.: April 10, 1997. 

Other Related Products 

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